Obama will not announce a VP in the morning. Why? Because his supporters in Hawaii will be sleeping. Since Hawaii is six hours behind New York, the earliest Obama can announce on Thursday or Friday is 2:00 p.m. EST. This would make it 8:00 a.m. in Hawaii, which is still bright and early for many.
I expect Obama to announce between the times of 2pm - 9pm EST.
You know I try and remain optimistic.
Everyone says not to speak ill of the Clintons for purposes of unity. Well I cant hold my tonuge any longer. HRC doesnt really want to unify.
You know its one thing to claim unity to a group of Obama supporters...but what is she doing to bring her supporters over?
U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq's cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal from the country, according to senior American officials.
The draft agreement sets 2011 as the date by which all remaining U.S. troops will leave Iraq, according to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Humood and other people familiar with the matter.
...."The talking is done," one U.S. official said late Wednesday night. "Now the decision makers choose whether to give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down."
....U.S. President George W. Bush is almost certain to accept the agreement, according to U.S. officials. The administration believes that the deal doesn't require congressional approval and won't present it to U.S. lawmakers.
The last time Milbank appears on their website is 8/7/08, where he pointedly refused to apologize for the Obama quote:
My colleague Jonathan Weisman and I believe the quote was correct as written, and that this supposed "context" is a recreation, after-the-fact, by Democratic aides who were worried about how the quote looked. Perhaps Obama didn't mean for it to come out that way, but there's every reason to believe it did. The Post's ombudsman will be writing about it this weekend, I think, so we'll see what she has to say.
Here is why I am posting this journal, my father, who's to the left of even Ted Kennedy on most issues, gave a generous contribution to John McCain after seeing a CNN special on John McCain's term as a prisoner of war, how he reenlisted even after being shot down, on how he was tortured, and how he refused to be released early because of his father's status inspite of the torture.
The man IS a patriot. And liberals respect them more than conservatives. ANY attempt to smear John McCain about his time as a prisoner of war WILL backfire in a big way. Don't even think about going that route. The man deserves to be respected for his service.
The strategy to win must be based on what a John McCain presidency would look like. Highlight the policies that John McCain openly supports, the ones he openly opposes, and make the campaign about that.
There's a lot of people saying that Obama should go full force personally negative on John McCain, attacking the man's character.
That's a risky, and almost foolhardy path to take.
There is nothing you can say to dimune McCain's character after his refusal to be released from prison early.
Sorry everyone - all signs point to a Clinton announcement on Saturday in Illinois. Everyone else is writing VP diaries, so I had to write mine. Today Obama was heard saying "he" when referring to his vice president. Howard Fineman said if he had to bet his life on it, "it's Joe Biden." But who else would you need to wait to announce until the last minute like this? Who else could dominate a week of coverage and overshadow anybody that McCain picks? Who else has already been given two nights of the convention? I'm sorry, but I smell unity at the convention...
Barack Obama is a neighborhood organizer at heart. He knows the importance of getting boots on the ground and talking to people. He wants volunteers to contact every voter in America and personally deliver his message of hope and change. dday wrote a diary about how Obama’s strategy is not about top down messaging through national ads. He is not trying to change minds en masse but one voter at a time, one contact at a time. Obama is counting on winning through registering new voters and getting them to the polls. Now we have to ask the question, "Will these new voters show up to vote for Obama?"
Warning: This is a rant. More Strong language below the fold
I waited till midnight to push the button to publish this. I'm up past my bedtime - and I'm still angry enough to take the plunge. I'll go back to writing saner diaries another day, or maybe writing no diaries at all, but I would be dishonest if I just sat on my hands and didn't share how I'm feelin' right about now. So here it goes.
Rumblings are that Team Obama is heading to Indiana. Let’s hope Barack isn’t so stupid as to pick Evan Bayh.
This "fortunate son" has been living on his old man Birch Bayh’s name and reputation since he climbed into daddy’s Senate seat. And in those ten years, his accomplishments?
Pollster is not only a fine site for poll data, but also has top-notch people writing about polls and poll methodology.
As to today's Zogby poll, which has McCain +5 and which has generated a certain amount of Chicken Littleism, Moore at Pollster says it's a very strange poll.
All pollsters, it seems, eventually find themselves with what Andy Kohut once referred to as "loopy" results.
This time, it's Zogby's turn to confuse the masses. His latest Reuters/Zogby poll, based on a sample of 1,089 "likely voters" drawn from listed telephone numbers, conducted Aug. 14-16, 2008, shows McCain over Obama by 46% to 41%.
What makes the poll especially strange, even after taking into consideration that it has screened out whoever they consider to be unlikely to vote, is that it only includes people with listed telephone numbers.
I think this kinda goes into the stranger than fiction files:
In an unusual move, Hillary Clinton's staff is creating a 40-member "whip team" at the Denver Democratic convention to ensure that her supporters don't engage in embarrassing anti-Obama demonstrations during the floor vote on her nomination, according to people familiar with the planning.
[Sorry for Short Diary, but I did not see anywhere on DKos and I think this is important in framing the military experience issue for the rest of campaign.]
That's right! Courtesy of right wing "Vets For Freedom" (Think Progress):
his experienced is based on what? The Mekong Delta. It’s based to Vietnam, a totally different fight, a totally different enemy, and by the way, it was 30 years ago.
As if there weren't already enough examples of John McCain's dishonesty and hypocrisy, he has delivered another strikingly brazen illustration of just how far he will go to promote himself and to demean his opponent, Barack Obama. And it's all captured on video:
Brought to you by... News Corpse, The Internet's Chronicle Of Media Decay.
The Little League World Series, that is. And it was a semi-final, not the Big Enchilada.
But far more important than the fact that the team from real America got eliminated is the potential impact on the presidential race. Because this can only be a huge boost for McCain's chances.
Why? Well, consider: Obama is from Hawaii, and many of the boys on the team have foreign-sounding names. Even worse, I didn't see a single flag pin on any of their uniforms. What's more, the series is held in Pennsylvania, which is full of disgruntled Clinton supporters. And…and, well, I can't really figure out all the implications, but I DO KNOW BEYOND DOUBT THAT THIS CAN ONLY BE GREAT NEWS FOR MCCAIN!
The enemy we face my dear friends, cannot be reasoned with, cannot be bargained with and will not stop, ever, until they have destroyed all who disagree with them.
well, perhaps I should back up a skosh and 'xplain what the hell I'm talking about:
Yesterday, Toby Keith, Platinum selling country singer most famous for his jingoistic anthem "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue" (which contains the immortal lyric "well put a boot in your ass it's the America Way) and the nostalgic ode to lynching "Beer for my horses", surprisingly had a few nice things to say about Barack Obama
I thought it was beautiful the other day when Obama went to Afghanistan and got educated about Afghanistan and Iraq. He came back and said some really nice things...I think he's the best Democratic candidate we've had since Bill Clinton
And our friends on the right reacted with a measured, sober analysis of the development that has become their hallmark.
Erick Erickson, the editor of the far right Republican blog RedState, sent an e-mail to RedState supporters this morning urging the University of Illinois/Chicago to release documents related to Barack Obama's participation in the Annenberg Challenge on Excellence in Education, founded by Bill Ayers. For those of you not familiar with Ayers, he was a co-founder of the militant Weather Underground that took over Students for a Democratic Society in 1969. He has since reformed and is now a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois/Chicago.
Ayers' past is now being exploited by the far right in a shameless attempt to connect him to Barack Obama. In fact, there is absolutely no evidence that Obama and Ayers have had anything but an academic and philanthropic relationship. This is nothing more than an attempt to associate Barack Obama with a so-called "terrorist," who was never convicted, in the far right's broader attempt to cast Obama as different, foreign, "the other."
Erickson's e-mail and more commentary beneath the fold.
